The Hidden Half: School Employees Who Don’t Teach

Reads and Resources

In this report, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute observes that America spends 1/4 of education expenses on the salaries of its non-teaching workforce, which grew by 130% between 1970 and 2010. At the same time, we use generic catch-alls to define this group of workers. For instance, we might categorize them as “support staff who are not central office support, library support, or administrative support.” This means that, while we are spending an increasing amount of our funding on these employees, we are not producing data on how this expense impacts student achievement.

The report also provides detailed comparisons between states and between countries.